"When Ralph McTell walks out on a stage, he brings just two things with him. His incredible talent and his humanity through his work." - Christy Moore
This is a definitive biography of one of England's very great songwriters and performers. Pair McTell with the blindingly beautiful voice of Sandy Denny and you have the twin vocal peaks of English music. Towering above most, precious few coming close to what both have achieved. The late first lady of folk's majesty ably captured in the Richard Thompson days of Fairport Convention. Ralph McTell still continuing to demonstrate how evocative that voice is every time he takes to a stage. Listen to McTell sing The Hiring Fair live and then tell me I'm wrong.
In principle there are two types of music biography. The first are written against the clock by writers sat at library tables piled high with rock encyclopedias or furtively copying quotes in bookshops on the strength of advances from a publisher. The second are written by writers who have both a passion for the subject and who wear out shoe leather in exhaustive research.
Judged by the cover alone, the reader might mistake this for the former type of biography given its obvious title 'Streets of London' after Ralph McTell's 'greatest hit'. The content belies any such notion. Thankfully Chris Hockenhull belongs to those worn shoe leather writers who scratch beneath the surface instead of regurgatating material, and often mistakes, from libraries. Not that rock encyclopedias are exactly full of Ralph McTell detail.
This book brings the songwriting of Ralph McTell, what makes the artist tick to the fore. It is 160 A4 pages that speak of an ordinary kind of guy who likes nothing more than a pint down the pub with his mates but whose songwriting has extended through classics like From Clare To Here, The Ferryman, The Hiring Fair and countless others to his extraordinary album tribute to Dylan Thomas, The Boy With the Note.
It is a book that reminds us that the social concern first evident in Streets of London is there in McTell's latter day Care In The Community. Chris Hockenhull also documents the artist's song Bentley and Craig which carries the torch for an innocent teenager hanged by the British system of justice in the 1950s.
A story told through twenty two chronological chapters that begin in war torn Croydon backstreets through to ramshackle folk clubs, busking in Paris streets, selling out the Albert Hall and how the artist's career has ebbed and rolled over the last two decades. The work balances the views of the author combined with interviews of friends and musicians and Ralph McTell himself. Chris Hockenhull uses verses from Ralph McTell songs that both serve to illustrate the extent of his songwriting and to underline the unfolding story.
The author also questions the lack of a CD anthology or a retrospective of Ralph McTell's work. This could certainly be the script for such an undertaking. This book fills a literary gap in the documention of English music. All that is needed now are those CDs.
Mike Plumbley